Recommended Biographie & Autobiographie Books

At the age of twenty-three, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth had been knocked out. His nose was broken and there was a hole through his cheek. He had no idea where the plane was headed or what had happened ov...

We've all got our idiosyncrasies when it comes to writing--a special chair we have to sit in, a certain kind of yellow paper we absolutely must use. To create this tremendously affecting memoir, Jean-Dominique Bauby used the only tool...

There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir, Running with Scissors, that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, g...

An inspirational memoir of the teenage author's struggles to survive her youth in war-torn Kabul describes her witness to brutal conflicts between the mujahideen and the Soviets during her earliest years, her extensive injuries after ...

This book is a set of reflections and recollections of a driver's 40 plus years in the hard and unforgiving world of the haulage and transport industry. It delves into the methods resorted to, in order to survive and make ends meet fo...

Florence King’s hilarious memoir of being reared in an eccentric Southern family by a grande dame grandmother who tried to hammer her into the shape of a true Southern lady. Was Granny successful? That is for the readers to deci...

A dramatic and entertaining memoir by the award-winning actor and director describes growing up with a schizophrenic mother and renowned actor father, looking at the various turning points in his life and exploring the world around hi...

In a candid memoir, a successful entrepreneur traces his journey from growing up with an abusive stepfather, to life on the streets as a homeless man with a small toddler in tow, to his triumphant battle to the top as a self-made mill...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning work by nature-writer Annie Dillard. Living alone on Tinker Creek in Virginia's Roanoke Valley, Dillard follows the progression of seasons and explores the cosmic significance of the beauty and violence coex...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In the summer of 1962, nineteen-year-old Mimi Beardsley arrived in Washington, D.C., to begin an internship in the White House press office. After just three days on the job, the privileged but sheltered...

Clay Aiken, the undeniably talented American Idol runner up and self-proclaimed 'nerdy, geeky, momma's boy' (and boy, does he love to talk about his momma), has written a strange hybrid of memoir, self-help and religious testimony--an...

The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who "burned like a comet" in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining o...

When World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle left for the Pacific Theater in 1945, he told friends and colleagues that he felt sure he would die there. Pyle was right; on April 18th, a Japanese machine gunner killed one of America's m...

Based on a selection of more than ten thousand internal documents of the Hughes organization, including three thousand pages of the billionaire's own handwritten memos, a revealing biography of the enigmatic Howard Hughes and his empi...

With a family of twelve children, it's a good thing that both Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth are efficiency experts. Running his family like a factory, yet acting like a kid himself, father Frank Gilbreth helps keep an already lively group eve...

“Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.” —Cary GrantHe is Hollywood’s most fascinating and timeless star. Although he came to personify the debonair American, Cary Grant was born Archib...

What does it really mean to be a good father? What did your father tell you, that has stayed with you throughout your life? Was there a lesson from him, a story, or a moment that helped to make you who you are? Is there a special memo...

A young Iranian-American journalist returns to Tehran and discovers not only the oppressive and decadent life of her Iranian counterparts who have grown up since the revolution, but the pain of searching for a homeland that may not ex...

Drawing on letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, and other primary source material, this incisive portrait focuses on the accomplishments of Wilbur and Orville Wright, in a volume celebrating the one hundredth anniver...

The author of the New York Times bestseller The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club tackles her biggest challenge yet: grown-up life.In Autobiography of a Fat Bride, Laurie Notaro tries painfully to make the transition from all-n...

Fascinating and inspiring.... Santiago is a born storyteller. - New York Times Book Review Enthralled admirers of Esmeralda Santiago's memoirs of her childhood have yearned to read more. Now, in The Turkish Lover, Esmeralda finally b...

What do you do after you write a #1 bestselling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures that makes you rich and famous? Celebrate by getting more drunk and having insane amounts of sex, obviously. And pretty soon you've got anot...

An Inspector Kurt Wallander short novel by the bestselling author Henning Mankell, available in English for the first time. A Vintage Canada Original. Soon after Inspector Kurt Wallander moves into a new house with a charmin...

When John McPhee returned to the island of his ancestors—Colonsay, twenty-five miles west of the Scottish mainland—a hundred and thirty-eight people were living there. About eighty of these, crofters and farmers, had familial hist...

Bill Clegg had a thriving business as a literary agent, representing a growing list of writers. He had a supportive partner, trusting colleagues, and loving friends when he walked away from his world and embarked on a two-month crack ...

Ulla -Carin Lindquist was happily married, with four adoring children and a successful career as a newscaster. All of that changed when her fiftieth birthday drew near, and she was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's diseas...

From the bestselling author of She's Not There comes another buoyant, unforgettable memoir—I'm Looking Through You is about growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts.For Jennifer Boyla...

"I have been incredibly fortunate over the course of my career to have been associated with some extraordinary dramatic and musical productions, and also some rather spectacular disasters. Looking back, I can find gifts and life ...